I traveled to Wardell Missouri yesterday with a buddy of mine to duck hunt on one of their leases.
I can't afford to duck hunt like this but I will say this, it was SO NICE to know that the closest pit / blind to us was a mile away.
No worries about swing shooters, sky busters and ducks flaring from that single gunshot that is inevitably coming just as ducks you are working drop to make that last swing and drop into your hole.
We got there and got in the pit just minutes before legal light.
There were 5 of us total in the pit.
I was still getting situated and was actually in the process of loading my shotgun when the first 2 specks came in.
One of the two fell and I managed to get a shot off at the second one as it was leaving the hole but, of course, I never touched it.
Then a couple big ole fat green heads came in and we killed both of them.
Then a couple more came in and we killed both of those.
I know I killed 2 so my day was made.
The morning was setting up to be one of those epic type days in my opinion.
Ducks were everywhere and they were working and as I said, no worries about all the public land bull crap that goes on.
At the end of the first hour and a half we had 8 total.
The decision was made, just as the sun got fully up, that the 800 +/- ducks & geese that were feeding in the field behind us were hurting our chances so a couple of the guys decided to try a stalk on them. LOL that worked about like you can imagine it did. :rotf:
Dunno if they were helping or hurting but as soon as they got up and left it was like a ghost town.
We heard like 3 volley's from the pits in earshot in the next 3 hours.
We worked several ducks on several different occasions but they would work and work and commit, lock up and drop in, then they would land out in the open water about 100 yards out past and to the left of our decoys. :bash:
Tried several different moves with the decoys but to no avail.
My PERSONAL opinion was, if we would have removed the mojo's we could have got them in but I guess those guys had seen too many good reactions to remove them. I am just not a fan of the mojo's.
We had one black duck working the hole and it actually did work and come in but again, landed about 80 yards out. :shock:
Later in the morning we had another single black duck and a pair of black ducks working but none of them ever came in.
I thought that was pretty amazing.
On 4 different occasions we had 1,500 to 2,000 ducks working our hole at the same time. The typical "cyclone" of ducks. I can honestly say I have never seen anything like that before in my life.
We could have killed (or shot at) several singles & doubles during those times but I am glad nobody called the shot because seeing all those ducks was really something to see.
I have never seen groups of pintails as large as the ones we saw too. Literally several hundred at the same time.
I can't begin to guess how many snows and specks we saw, easily in the hundreds of thousands.
When it was all said and done we killed 4 (or 5, I can't remember) greenheads, pintail bull, pintail susie, 4 (or 5, I can't remember) greenwing teal, a widgeon and a speck.
One guy had to leave at 9:30 and he took his ducks out with him so we didn't get the "hero shot" at the end of the day.
I did snap a couple pics early to send to my son. :stir:
oke:
Good times.
I can't afford to duck hunt like this but I will say this, it was SO NICE to know that the closest pit / blind to us was a mile away.
No worries about swing shooters, sky busters and ducks flaring from that single gunshot that is inevitably coming just as ducks you are working drop to make that last swing and drop into your hole.
We got there and got in the pit just minutes before legal light.
There were 5 of us total in the pit.
I was still getting situated and was actually in the process of loading my shotgun when the first 2 specks came in.
One of the two fell and I managed to get a shot off at the second one as it was leaving the hole but, of course, I never touched it.
Then a couple big ole fat green heads came in and we killed both of them.
Then a couple more came in and we killed both of those.
I know I killed 2 so my day was made.
The morning was setting up to be one of those epic type days in my opinion.
Ducks were everywhere and they were working and as I said, no worries about all the public land bull crap that goes on.
At the end of the first hour and a half we had 8 total.
The decision was made, just as the sun got fully up, that the 800 +/- ducks & geese that were feeding in the field behind us were hurting our chances so a couple of the guys decided to try a stalk on them. LOL that worked about like you can imagine it did. :rotf:
Dunno if they were helping or hurting but as soon as they got up and left it was like a ghost town.
We heard like 3 volley's from the pits in earshot in the next 3 hours.
We worked several ducks on several different occasions but they would work and work and commit, lock up and drop in, then they would land out in the open water about 100 yards out past and to the left of our decoys. :bash:
Tried several different moves with the decoys but to no avail.
My PERSONAL opinion was, if we would have removed the mojo's we could have got them in but I guess those guys had seen too many good reactions to remove them. I am just not a fan of the mojo's.
We had one black duck working the hole and it actually did work and come in but again, landed about 80 yards out. :shock:
Later in the morning we had another single black duck and a pair of black ducks working but none of them ever came in.
I thought that was pretty amazing.
On 4 different occasions we had 1,500 to 2,000 ducks working our hole at the same time. The typical "cyclone" of ducks. I can honestly say I have never seen anything like that before in my life.
We could have killed (or shot at) several singles & doubles during those times but I am glad nobody called the shot because seeing all those ducks was really something to see.
I have never seen groups of pintails as large as the ones we saw too. Literally several hundred at the same time.
I can't begin to guess how many snows and specks we saw, easily in the hundreds of thousands.
When it was all said and done we killed 4 (or 5, I can't remember) greenheads, pintail bull, pintail susie, 4 (or 5, I can't remember) greenwing teal, a widgeon and a speck.
One guy had to leave at 9:30 and he took his ducks out with him so we didn't get the "hero shot" at the end of the day.
I did snap a couple pics early to send to my son. :stir:
oke: Good times.
